Watching Saltburn was an experience as I’m not entirely familiar with Emerald Fennell’s work overall as an actress or filmmaker. This film, one where a young man, Oliver Quick, played by Barry Keoghan, who has this admiration and jealousy over a classmate’s standing in society – being wealthy, becomes this twisted modern fairy tale of a thriller that pushes the boundaries of showing total stalker-like obsession. This film plays with sexuality and satire and thrills in a way that hits pretty damn well. It does right up until it doesn’t. See, Oliver attends Oxford University on scholarship, and he feels ostracized from where he wants to be; he may be smart, but he’s not old money rich, and that is wholly embodied by Felix Catton, played by Jacob Elordi. He is the center of all the cool things on campus; all the girls want to be with him, and guys want to like him. You know the trope. Oliver is able to befriend him with stories of hard upbringing, and I’m talking like Charles Dickens-level terrible, which makes Felix want to pull him in. The next thing you know, Felix asks Oliver to stay with him over the summer at his family’s estate in Saltburn. The film then shifts to Oliver entering this extremely wealthy world, where all the people are terrible, but the lifestyle is alluring. Here, this feels like a core concept of the film. For me, this family doesn’t feel that much different from any family you watch on reality television, like the Kardashians. People who are entirely unaware of, at times, common decency. That life, though, is alluring to many, to be above it all, and it’s one that is alluring to Oliver.
At this point you can watch this film at home and maybe in a theater. For the most part this film is very beautiful to look at. Linus Sandgren was able to capture light. It’s something that, when done well, I end up focusing on as I watch a film, and this one was one of the best of the year, along with the overall shots that Emerald Fennell and Linus Sandgren choose to visually do more with showing the characters and especially Oliver’s view. Once at the estate, it’s like a dream to be there for Oliver, and it looks the part. The film, though, does get weird as it shifts into an unreliable narrator at times and then Fatal Attraction vibes and skates around being like The Talented Mr. Ripley. Then once you’re well into the film, and you’re rocking with it, and you’re yeah, Fennell, you’re cooking right now – it just goes right over the cliff. In the last 15-20 minutes, he decides to go places with Oliver, and what he is capable of doing is just far-fetched, and it feels like it becomes another film. It took me entirely out and made it pretty hilarious. While it made me laugh, it took me out of the story entirely and changed what I felt about the film for the previous hour and a half plus I’d just watched. Emerald Fennell clearly with Promising Young Woman, and now this is a Writer/Director that people will pay attention to, yet for me, their endings still leave a lot to be desired and keep them from being a filmmaker I anticipate their subsequent work for right now.
Score: C
